Authorities release Prince’s 911 call as medical history is revealed

THE last photo of Prince suggests he was sicker than it seemed, with witnesses claiming he looked “frail” and “nervous”.

THIS is the last known photo of Prince before his tragic death.

The popstar was spotted leaving a Walgreens store near his home in Minnesota on Wednesday night at around 7pm. Just over 12 hours later, emergency responders would attend his Paisley Park mansion after a 911 call reported a man was “not breathing”.

It was Prince’s fourth visit to the pharmacy this week.

“Our sources tell us Prince had frequented the Walgreens for years -- but last night, people at the store were concerned because he looked much more frail and nervous than usual, TMZ reported.

Prince was photographed leaving a pharmacy near his home in Minnesota on Wednesday at about 7pm, just hours before he died. Picture: Backgrid

Meanwhile, a strange 911 call from Prince’s mansion has revealed more questions than answers amid claims the reported “flu” Prince was suffering days before his death was in fact treatment for a drug overdose.

TMZ reports the pop star was injected with a “save shot”, which the publication says is “typically administered to counteract the effects of an opiate”, six days before his death.

Heroin is the most commonly known opioid, but it also comes in the form of painkillers, including antidepressants, anti-anxiety and antipsychotics.

A week ago, on April 15, the pop icon’s private jet was forced to make an unscheduled landing after the star’s health declined after a performance in Atlanta. He spent three hours in the hospital for flu before being released and sent home to rest.

But the US website is today reporting the emergency landing was not in fact a respiratory infection, but a drug overdose, and that doctors advised him to stay in hospital for 24 hours.

When a private room wasn’t available to the musician, he flew home.

“At the time his reps said he was battling the flu ... something we questioned because his plane was only 48 minutes from home before the unscheduled landing,” the story reads.

According to the website, Prince “was not doing well”.

The 911 call from emergency responders was released by authorities overnight as more details about the singer’s dramatic medical history come to light.

The full transcript of the 911 call reveals a “panicked” man dialled the emergency number after finding the pop star unconscious.

“People are just distraught here,” TMZ quotes the man saying.

“Um, we’re at Prince’s house. So, yeah, um, the person is dead here.”

Yet strangely, the caller was unaware of the address of the Paisley Park mansion, and was forced to grab it from another person in the room, begging the question — who was the mystery 911 caller?

In the released 19-second audio, the dispatcher is heard putting out the call for a “person down, not breathing” after the singer was discovered unresponsive in his elevator at 9.43am.

“A male down, not breathing,” says an emergency responder.

Six minutes later, at 9.49am, emergency crew began working on the pop star, but declared Prince dead 18 minutes later, at 10.07am.

The official cause of his death is not yet known, but it is believed a serious bout of flu may be to blame.

“The flu can be serious,” said Dr Manny Alvarez, senior managing editor at foxhealth.com.

“Thousands of people die every year from the flu and this is the reason we tell people to be very careful and get their flu shot.

“We know from data out of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the respiratory illness hospitalises more than 200,000 people — and kills about 36,000 — each year.”

While Prince’s music career shone brightly in the spotlight, less was known about his overwhelming medical history.

In April, 2009, he discussed his struggle with epilepsy to People Magazine, describing how he “used to have seizures when I was young. My mother and father didn’t know what to do or how to handle it but they did the best they could with what little they had.”

“My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, ‘Mum, I’m not going to be sick anymore’, and she said ‘Why?’ and I said ‘Because an angel told me so’. Now, I don’t remember saying it, that’s just what she told me.”

Prince and Mayte Garcia perform at VH-1 Fashion and Music Awards in 1995.

Meanwhile, in 1997, the singer and his then-wife, Mayte Garcia, lost a baby boy, named Boy Gregory, to skeletal abnormality Pfeiffer’s syndrome, which Dr Alvarez described as an “inherited disorder”.

“According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Pfeiffer’s syndrome leads to premature fusion of specific skull bones, causing tracheal and bronchial abnormalities, as well as facial difference,” Dr Alvarez said.

“Individuals with the disorder often have bulging and wide-set eyes, a high forehead, an underdeveloped upper jaw, and a beaked nose.

“It is an autosomal dominant disease, meaning one copy of the altered gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the disorder. An affected individual has a 50 per cent chance of having a child with the syndrome, which means this is a disorder that is typically inherited from an affected parent.”

In a statement to People Magazine, after the news broke, Ms Garcia said, “I loved him then, I love him now and will love him eternally. He’s with our son now.”

In a tragic twist of events, Ms Garcia miscarried shortly after Boy Gregory died, and the couple split soon after.

“I think I’m now screwed for life because my first relationship was the most bizarre relationship ever and I’m not normal any more,” she told The Mirror.

“I guess I am kind-of screwed-up now.

“To lose two babies is really scary ... it really caught on me emotionally, physically, everything. It took me at least 15 years to get over it and still, to this day, I miss my son.

“I believe a child dying between a couple either makes you stronger or it doesn’t. For me, it was very, very hard to move forward and for us as a couple I think it probably broke us.”

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